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Timofei—
    “I am not judging you for your thoughts,” Kruzenko says. “Empty your mind, and let only the music in.”
    The horns sound in the distance, mournful; the drums hint at soldiers on the march. A banal thought trickles through the trees—hunger. Yes, the buckwheat porridge at the KGB holding cell was not enough to last me through the day. But Yevtushenko’s voice booms over the stray thought, bouncing off the shadowy snow. When will we be eating? As the violins slide in to have their say, I suspect I will be stuck here for far too long. No, I must focus: the sawing cello matches my pounding heart, until there is nothing more.
    “And just like that, I cannot hear your thoughts.” Kruzenko smirks. “Well—you are no longer broadcasting them to the whole world, at least. You must keep practicing. Any time you feel it falter, call up the melody again.”
    I open my mouth to speak, but the music stutters. Two tries, three—around the seventh try I think I can manage it. “I—I think I understand.”
    She nods. “Eventually, it will be as natural as breathing.”
    I take a deep breath and gust it out. Shostakovich’s melody plays at the back of my mind, but I can fit other thoughts in my head now, too; they don’t have to drown him out. It’s a comfort to have him there, like an extra blanket in winter.
    Major Kruzenko reaches into her pocket. “Now let us tame your gift—enough for you to participate in today’s class.”
    Mama’s necklace spins before me. My heart lurches, but I smother it in my new music. I can’t panic.
    “Admittedly, you are the first I have encountered whose powers work primarily through touch. But I understand some of it. Memories and thoughts can cling to objects like a film, and the psychic—you—must sift through the layers to find the correct memory.”
    I reach for the medallion, but she pulls it out of my reach. “Gently, child. Try the lightest brush of skin, so only the most recent memory flakes away.”
    I extend my index finger until it barely bumps against the medallion. Kruzenko nods at me, and I close my eyes.
    Thrashing—water rushing up my nose. I suck in air but darkness floods my lungs instead. Images drift past me like bubbles: Kruzenko holding the necklace out to me in the interrogation room; Kruzenko in an office, one I’ve never seen, discussing the pendant with a uniformed man. I can’t see his face, but there’s that buzzing sound again, overwriting her gypsy song.
    “Deeper now.” A bubble with Kruzenko’s voice inside punctures as it hits me. “Deeper, into the past.” I swim on.
    Mama, slumped in a chair, blood trailing down her nose. I thrash again and surface in the sight. She does not look afraid—she does not feel afraid, a fact I am certain of, though I can’t explain how. Zhenya sits beside her, making a high-pitched whine that I might have mistaken for a fan belt had I not heard him make this noise before. I don’t need my “power” to know this sound for the very essence of his fear.
    “Give her this,” Mama says, and tears the necklace free. She is not bound to the chair—not in any way that I can see. “She won’t listen to you. She’ll have to hear that I’m alive—see it—through me.”
    “I hope she listens, then, for your sake,” a man’s voice says, but when I try to look at him, I fall through a white fog. No more memories lie beyond it. The balcony reforms around me, blurry with the vision’s residue.
    “A respectable first attempt,” Kruzenko says. I surface back into reality, but Mama’s expression, her blood clings to my skin. My music is gone. Shostakovich, I need Shostakovich, I don’t want Kruzenko in my head. I pull the melody around me like a towel, and scrub away the thoughts of Mama, of her tired acceptance.
    Surely she has not already given up. Surely she is only waiting for the right opportunity to fight.
    Kruzenko pockets the medallion before I can reach for it again, and ushers me